(WTTW News)

The National Labor Relations Board is asking a judge to order Starbucks to reopen 23 shuttered locations around the U.S. – including at Bryn Mawr and Winthrop avenues in Edgewater – claiming the company closed the coffee shops as retaliation for employees unionizing or to hinder their organizing efforts.

Arlene Geiger, left, holds a sign supporting Starbucks workers outside a Starbucks on New York's Upper West Side, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023. Thousands of workers at more than 200 U.S. Starbucks stores plan to walk off the job Thursday in what organizers say is the largest strike yet in the two-year-old effort to unionize the company's stores. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

The Workers United union chose Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day to stage the walkout since it’s usually one of the busiest days of the year. 

(Chin Hei Leung / SOPA Images / LightRocket/ Getty Images via CNN)

Several forces are pushing chains out of some city centers: a glut of stores, people working from home, online shopping, exorbitant rents, crime and public safety concerns, and difficulty hiring workers. To reinvent downtown retail, drastic changes may be required.

(WTTW News)

The Greektown workers’ announcement comes on the heels of Starbucks workers at Old Orchard Mall in Skokie and the location near Main Street and Chicago Avenue in Evanston voting last month in favor of joining Starbucks Workers United, an SEIU affiliate.

 A Starbucks worker in Edgewater participates in a one-day strike on Aug. 30, 2022. (WTTW News)

Workers at high-profile companies like Amazon and Starbucks have unionized, as have employees at smaller chains and locally-owned firms. Chicago workers have also been part of the wave. Here’s a look at some of the big developments over the past year.

(WTTW News)

Workers at six Starbucks locations in Chicago and the suburbs are joining a nationwide wave of three-day unfair labor practice strikes aimed at the mega-coffee retailer, organizers say.

Starbucks sign is pictured in a file photo. (WTTW News)

Starbucks workers at coffee shops in Bucktown, Edgewater, northwest suburban Cary, and west suburban Elmhurst joined a nationwide strike Thursday aimed at coinciding with the coffee giant’s popular “Red Cup Day” promotion, organizers say.

(WTTW News)

The unionization announcement comes one day after Lakeview Starbucks employees voted 11-to-1 in favor of representation, according to voting results shared by organizers. On Monday, Glenview Starbucks workers announced they plan to organize as well.

(WTTW News)

Workers at a Lakeview Starbucks voted 11-1 on Tuesday to form a union, according to vote results shared by organizers.

The Starbucks at Bryn Mawr and Winthrop avenues in Chicago is pictured on Oct. 13, 2022. (WTTW News)

Starbucks is shutting down one of the first Chicago locations where workers unionized – just days before the company was set to begin negotiations on a contract.

Starbucks sign is pictured in a file photo. (WTTW News)

Employees at a Starbucks in west suburban Elmhurst say they’ve filed for union representation, joining hundreds of other coffee shops around the country and in the Chicago area.

 A Starbucks worker in Edgewater participates in a one-day strike on Aug. 30, 2022. (WTTW News)
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House lawmakers heard testimony Wednesday on barriers workers say they face to organizing, and what pro-business groups and Republicans in Congress call Democratic overreach.

(WTTW News)

Workers at a unionized Starbucks coffee shop in Edgewater walked off the job Tuesday, protesting what they say is a pattern of the company illegally disciplining employees as retaliation for organizing. Similar charges have been echoed by pro-union Starbucks workers around the U.S. 

Starbucks sign is pictured in a file photo. (WTTW News)

The workers at the coffee shop, located at the corner of Irving Park Road and Ashland Avenue, are seeking to join the seven other Chicago-area Starbucks locations that have so far voted in favor of unionizing. 

(WTTW News)

The results of the election were released by organizers after a National Labor Relations Board vote count Friday morning. The Devon and Broadway Starbucks joins two others in Edgewater, and one each in Bucktown, Hyde Park, North Park and northwest suburban Cary.

(WTTW News)

The coffee shop, located at Lincoln and Jersey avenues on the border of North Park and West Ridge, is located in the Lincoln Village shopping center. It’s now the sixth Chicago-area Starbucks to vote for unionization – and among more than 200 around the nation to unionize so far.